Without women taking an active role in Afghan society, rebuilding Afghanistan is going to be very difficult.

I wished I could be alone in my room, with my books, away from these people.

Usually in films, when Muslims pray, it's either before or after they've blown something up.

The novel [The Kite Runner] came about as an expansion of that original, unpublished short story.

Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

I didn't remember what month that was, or what year even. I only knew the memory lived in me, a perfectly encapsulated morsel of a good past, a brushstroke of color on the gray, barren canvas that our lives had become.